PJS - Eco (2022)
A long-form ambient composition accompanied by footage of the White River in Muncie, Indiana
PJS
"Eco"
Environments (2022)
Kudatah
All songs written & produced by Patrick Dique & Jordan Christoff.
"Eco" video directed by Daniel Chamberlin
Digital: kudatah.bandcamp.com/album/environments
VHS: dystop1k.bandcamp.com/releases
Visual album stream: youtu.be/mtqcCBsD_r0
PJS is the duo Patrick Dique and Jordan Christoff. The ambient music project is based on the West Coast of Canada, and will be familiar to regular listeners of Inter-Dimensional Music as well as to participants in the IRL Basking in Gravity mindfulness installations that I was hosting pre-pandemic. Their sounds always made the bodies hit the floor: Guaranteed heavyweight corpse poser vibes.
The composition “Witches Brew” from their excellent 2020 album Precipice is featured on Void Contemplation Tactics 20200330. This 15-minute guided meditation experience also includes more heavily manipulated footage of East Central Indiana wetlands, along with language from Zen Master Seung Sahn.
The slow-motion visuals for PJS' "Eco" video were all captured on the White River Greenway in Muncie, IN. Each section of the video concludes with a mandala that is composed of dozens of overlapping images excerpted from the preceding sequence. I shot the footage primarily in August/Winter 2020 during my daily walks.
The river becomes swollen each winter as temperatures rise upwards of 40ºF on many days throughout the season, sending any overnight snow melting away into the not-quite-freezing drizzle. I became fascinated by abstracted waveforms of the frigid, sluggish water as it slushed through deep channels and frothed around bridge piers and submerged debris. I also lurked near the steaming drainage culverts that are bordered by warm moss and choked with frozen algae.
The Greenway passes by the former studio of the painter Bob Ross as it runs through downtown Muncie, but I was usually the only primate on scene. Along with beavers, groundhogs, ducks, geese, carp, and eagles, the heron in the video (one or many herons?) was one of the creatures that I often encountered. A sudden movement might send the bird flying downriver and into the trees, or upriver for a game of hopscotch along the embankment.
Working with Jordan and PJS was one of the highlights from a surprisingly productive year of pandemic-inspired social isolation. It was truly a pleasure and a privilege to spend so many hours coordinating my heavily manipulated footage with their sublime, bass-heavy ambience.
We’ll hear more music from Environments along with selections from Jordan Christoff’s solo album Elements (2022) on the February 11, 2022 broadcast of Inter-Dimensional Music. Our weekly program is on the airwaves of 99.1FM WQRT Indianapolis, Marfa Public Radio in Far West Texas, and LOOKOUT FM across the Los Angeles Basin. Check back here next week for a link to the archive.
You can also immerse yourself in the Environments FULL VISUALIZER experience, including additional work from Dystopik, CINEMA, and Q.
From Kudatah: Environments is the third release and second full-length album on Kudatah from Patrick Dique & Jordan Christoff's PJS project. This album continues their vision in exploring vast regions of hyper-cerebral ethereal sonic spaces. Each track on Environments takes the listener through a diverse spectrum of moods and colorful ecosystems, ranging from the uplifting aquatic and deep sub-bass vibrations on 'Weather System' to the mysterious melancholic filtered drones on 'Fragile'. Throughout the album, PJS takes the listener and soaks them in spiritual musical energies, winding together each of their signature analogous psychedelic sounds while expanding their unique style of surreal and lush ambience.
Thanks and praises to Dave Mendel, Karl Erickson, Gretchen Larsen, Whitney Joiner, Drew Stuart, and Rachel Buckmaster-Chamberlin for general feedback along with technical and emotional support. Gratitude to Jordan and Patrick for the collaboration, and to all of the artists involved in the production and screening of these works.
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